Leaked messages reveal New York Times’ aggressive anti-union strategy

A leaflet distributed to workers said a union would result in ‘weakening relationships between employees and managers’. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Internal documents and Slack messages obtained by the Guardian reveal senior executives at the New York Times are heavily leaning on workers to vote no in a union election for more than 600 tech employees.

Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief executive of the New York Times Company, wrote a memo on 19 January circulated to staff titled “Why a Tech Union Isn’t Right for Us” on the tech workers’ union election at XFun, the group within the New York Times responsible for product development operations.